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Monday, October 21, 2013

Documents added to FamilySearch Photos and Stories

The ability to upload a document in PDF format has been added to the FamilySearch.org Photos and Stories program. A link to the upload page appears in the menu bar. Here is a screenshot showing the new features as well as the link in the Menu bar:

By enabling this feature, FamilySearch is encouraging users to submit copies of documents they may have in their personal collections that act as source material for the user's ancestors in Family Tree. From previous announcements, it is likely that in the near future they will also provide a way for users to link the documents to a specific source reference.

I suggest that you carefully read the Documents Agreement that appears when you go to upload a document to FamilySearch.org and the Submission Agreement also. You should be familiar with both these policy statements.

I have been trying out this new feature and it seems to work very well.

Your thoughts about linking to FamilySearch Documents in your sources? I have been linking to the images I have uploaded as documents in FamilyTree - I view the original image, copy the link and put it as a URL in the Web Link Field in the Source on FamilyTree.

My question is, would you worry that they images we upload as documents or photos may move in the future and my links become dead?

Also, I use Tree Connect for capturing sources on other web sites and then upload images using their upload feature, but they look like they are being hosted by RecordSeek - same issue here, should I be concerned that these images may move and the URL become a dead link?

And one last question. I have been attaching sources in FamilySearch Family tree and then syncing them with Roots Magic - note fields don't always transfer, so I end up copying and pasting my notes to Roots Magic. A lot of duplicate effort. Any ideas to make that easier? I assume that Roots Magic and FamilySearch will continue to make it easier to sync information and clean up the inconsistent fields. What do you think?

My understanding from listening to Ron Tanner of FamilySearch is that they intend to provide a link from sources to documents. The other issue about bad links deserves a full blog post. Look for it soon.